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Cellphones

Smartphone Screen Real Estate: How Big Is Big Enough? 320

Posted by Soulskill from the if-it-doesn't-fit-on-your-coffee-table-you-might-have-a-problem dept.
MojoKid writes "Aside from the terrible nickname (it sounds like a term for the spoiled offspring of fabulous people), phablets are somewhat controversial because they seem to be the epitome of inflated phone sizes. A lot of people wanted bigger, and this is 'bigger' to the extreme. A larger screen on a smartphone is attractive for obvious reasons, but surely there's a limit. So how big is too big? If you're not into parsing out the particulars of form factors and use cases, here's a really easy way to figure out if your phone or phablet is too big: Can you hold the device in one hand and 1) unlock the phone, 2) type out a text message with your thumb, and 3) adjust the volume with the rocker without using your other hand? If not, you might need a smaller phone."

Comment Re:theater (Score 1) 1003

by richardoz (#38389778) Attached to: Why the NTSB Is Wrong About Cellphones

I think that the consensus is that a conversation with a passenger is different from that with some one on the phone - as the passenger is aware of the same environment and you both automatically adjust the tone/pace of the conversation depending on the current conditions. I.E. the passenger will generally keep quiet when you are performing a complex maneuver. That is not to say that passengers can not be a distraction, just that in general a phone conversation is a worse distraction that most passengers.

I would agree with you about the passengers being aware and automatically adjusting the conversation if they are adults who drive as well. But try getting your kids to stop chattering at you is quite another thing.
Biotech

Researchers Teach Subliminally; Matrix Learning One Step Closer 103

Posted by samzenpus from the I-know-kung-fu dept.
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time ever, scientists from Boston University and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan have managed to use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI to decode the process of learning. As the research stands to date, it isn't capable of much. Rather than working with skills like juggling, the researchers relied on images so they could tie into the vision part of the brain, the part that they have managed to partially decode. Nevertheless, they demonstrated that information could be taught using neurofeedback techniques. And it was effective even when people didn't know they were learning."
The Media

Victory For Music Locker Services? 51

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the save-those-redundant-bits dept.
Joining the ranks of accepted submitters, a user writes "Michael Robertson, the owner and founder of the MP3Tunes music locker service, has been locked in a copyright infringement case with EMI Records for a while now, especially because of the Sideloading search engine that is tacked along with the locker service. Now the case has been resolved though: EMI Records won. But lost on all the accounts that actually really matter." The important parts here are that MP3Tunes was granted safe harbor protection under the DMCA, and that merging multiple copies of the same file doesn't make distributing that master copy a public performance.
Linux

Boot Linux In Your Browser 393

Posted by Soulskill from the year-of-linux-in-the-browser dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Fabrice Bellard, the initiator of the QEMU emulator, wrote a PC emulator in JavaScript. You can now boot Linux in your browser, provided it is recent enough (Firefox 4 and Google Chrome 11 are reported to work)."

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